A Moonlit Memory
by Orange Trilobite
Summary: What's in a name? Ritsuka questions the nature of the fighter/sacrifice relationship. It happens after volume 9, chapter 3 of the manga. Ritsuka x Soubi, rated T for some language just to be safe.


WARNINGS: Manga plot spoilers

FYI: I do not own "Loveless" nor any of the characters.

* * *

Ever since _that_ night, Ritsuka had a lot to think about. He couldn't believe Seimei was that cruel. It didn't make sense. He had always remembered Seimei as being the best older bother when he was growing up. Granted, Ritsuka may have been looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but he was certain Seimei didn't have that mysterious cruel streak he had just witnessed. It was impossible. Something must be wrong, he thought. Something just didn't feel right about the whole situation, as if there were much more below the surface than he had ever even imagined. Were the Seven Moons responsible for it all? Or was someone else behind this?

But then again, what about Soubi?

Ritsuka stared at the fighter who lay on a sleeping pad on the ground near his bed. Ever since that night, Soubi had become even more protective of Ritsuka and insisted on spending the night just in case. Ritsuka finally understood that Soubi might have been just as much in the dark as he had been about Seimei's death; yet the silent Soubi was still a mystery.

Even though Ritsuka was sure Seimei was not a monster, he couldn't get Soubi's scars out of his mind. Had Seimei actually inflicted them upon him or had they been a result of multiple battles? Ritsuka remembered that the Zero pair had been called old women when they were barely in their early twenties. Did fighters and sacrifices really last as long as he had thought in this whole business? Soubi was known to be a great fighter. Had he taken the blows during all those years? This existence of sacrifice and fighter began to take on a more sinister light. Who the hell even thought up the system? And what for? Ritsuka felt like a pawn next to his sleeping knight.

And yet, the sleeping knight slept on, unperturbed with golden strands of silk twisted among the blankets.

Ritsuka contemplated him, wondering what sort of life he had had. Even though Ritsuka could piece together some things based on Soubi's personality, he still had no idea what Soubi's past was like.

Ritsuka quietly crawled to the edge of his bed and lay down on his stomach, his head sticking out from the edge as he watched Soubi sleeping on his side. The moonlight fell on Soubi's face, outlining the shadows beneath his eyes and cheeks. His brow was furrowed slightly and his mouth frowned as if he were concentrating. His silky hair trailed down his shoulders, becoming one with the blankets and his back. Ritsuka's eyes followed the strands until he came to the scars on Soubi's back. An old scar had reopened when Soubi broke that window a few nights ago and it was in the process of healing.

Ritsuka quietly got out of bed and walked to the bathroom to get some cream for scars and cuts. Even though Soubi had claimed, in a broken voice, that he was a traitor, Ritsuka couldn't accept that. He simply couldn't. Whatever may come, Ritsuka knew, in the end, Soubi's heart would never become a traitor.

Upon returning, Ritsuka quietly crept between Soubi's back and the bed legs and began to gently work the cream into Soubi's wounds. He ran the cream over the hardened ridges of skin, quietly thinking about all that had happened recently as the cream dried and disappeared into the skin. He had just finished running the last bit of cream over a cut which extended close to Soubi's right hip bone, when he felt fingers stop his hand, gently caressing it. Ritsuka, surprised, snapped out of his thoughts and looked down.

Soubi had turned his head back to look at Ritsuka over his shoulder. He was smiling, the moonlight playing with the folds around his mouth and eyes and magnifying the quiet gleam of mirth in his light eyes. A trill of warm chuckles hummed in his throat as Ritsuka stared at him.

"You're tending my wounds?"

"No, just looking at the damage that window caused," Ritsuka huffed in his independent way.

"Sure you are," Soubi smiled, rose from the waist, and encircled Ritsuka in his arms.

Ritsuka stiffened like steel, once again his independent self.

"Ah…right…who would hug a traitor?" Soubi loosened his arms, just then remembering. Even in the moonlight, Ritsuka could see the fallen, distant look in Soubi's eyes as if he were staring at some unavoidable fate.

Maybe he had underestimated the strain on Soubi now that Soubi had been placed between him and Seimei, Ritsuka thought, as he looked at the concealed despair in Soubi, a person who had been taught discipline and the meaning of pain early in life. For once, Ritsuka was not so worried about putting up his defenses.

"Traitor?"

Ritsuka curled up against Soubi's chest, entwining his arms in the silky strands on Soubi's back and resting his cheek against the knight's shoulder.

"Maybe, but not to me. You are to yourself. Although I don't know much about the fighter-sacrifice relationship, I know the strongest ties aren't made based upon blind duty but upon equality and your own ability to _choose_."

Soubi was surprised at these words coming from Ritsuka, and for the first moment during his time with Ritsuka, he didn't know what to do or say. He just stared down at those obsidian-like eyes gazing up at him. Finally he spoke.

"How do you know this? No offence, but your life hasn't exactly been full of ideal relationships like that."

"No, no one's is, but this whole blind duty thing just doesn't work. To hell, with this whole carving of names in skin and possessing other people. Controlling people just so that a pair can defeat another pair that's actually a lot like them, as if it were a game, is just so wrong. Whoever thought of it was cracked. I really don't like it. Why do we have to fight? Who is telling us we have to? It all seems so ridiculous but deadly serious at the same time."

"Are you ok?" Soubi looked at Ritsuka with the corners of his mouth dangerously close to smiling at Ritsuka's uncharacteristic outburst.

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Ritsuka grumbled and lightly pinched Soubi's chin.

Soubi remained silent for a moment and then replied, "But I see your point. Even though, I was raised to become a fighter, there are still some things which have never been clear. Maybe some investigating will help us figure out why you were named Loveless. I wonder, too, what power these names have over us."

"Nothing that can't be undone," Ritsuka said as he ran his finger over the bandages of Soubi's neck.

Soubi was absolutely surprised at Ritsuka throughout the whole conversation. Maybe necessity and time were opening Ritsuka up and making him more confident about what he had been guessing over the past few months.

Soubi lowered his head, lightly touching his nose to Ritsuka's as he gazed warmly into his eyes. He tenderly brushed Ritsuka's mouth with his lips and caressed the soft downy hairs on Ritsuka's cheek, which were only visible in the moonlight. The knight would forever remember the Ritsuka of that moonlit evening with his head resting against Soubi, the soft eyelashes beating like little butterfly wings over the pulse in the fighter's neck as the boy half-heartily tried to fight sleep. While the shadows grew crisp in the night, the elder's silky moonlit strands covered them both in a blanket of sleep.

"I _choose _thee_,_" came from smiling lips, like a spell whispered in the silvery silence.

* * *

If anyone had been watching the two that evening, they might have noticed a "D", which was half uncovered upon Soubi's neck, grow fainter. A skeptic would have said it was a trick of the moonlight. A romantic would have jumped for joy, exclaiming "Finally!" I just say, when it comes to disappearing Ds, choose wisely. ** :**D

(For those of you who may not know very much about either the manga or anime, the "D" is the "d" in "Beloved", which is the name that's engraved on Soubi's neck. Before Soubi was Ritsuka's fighter, he was Seimei's and together their name was "Beloved".)


End file.
